forgetting

but another day is just another day. and nothing needs to matter with my eyes closed. I lie on the grass in the sun and listen to a score of so much more than me. the clouds roll off into forever without waiting for permission. I think about joy and forgetting myself on the path to her door.

ink

every day gives way to a little more room in the dark; time and sleep to waste. I wait on my pillow for dreams to hide behind (for now). losing the words I used to think. another pen runs out of ink. and night is never long enough.

into a bird

another day is just another day. the cars keep moving into Christmas with the calendar. I count the years that disappear like clouds I can't remember. time runs through windows on forever and a decade leaves little more than frozen feelings. words don't mean much and nothing stops the sun.

and we fall further from the sound of your voice. attention is demanded by more pressing matters. we do what we must to keep going, making what we can from what we have; no more sense from today than the day that you left. the sun sets and we're still here clawing for answers from the dark. I fold the thought of you into a bird.

tomorrow

and we are only ever dreams away from waking up again.

tissue pyramid

and hope is futile as a phone call. bad news makes a pyramid of tear scrunched tissues. I watch her stack them on the dining table.

she cries out for arms that can't reach her and nobody knows what to say. the parents weep back through the screen into their pillows. we box the board game she laid out for the night that could have been before the call. I think about impermanence and what gets left behind. there's still some dinner in the pan to save for later in the fridge. I lock it up in plastic as quiet as I can.

dishwasher sounds

I close the book with a few pages left, unready to find somewhere else to be understood. we lay together on different pillows on our own sides of the bed, falling asleep to dishwasher sounds. I close my eyes and listen. spinning sounds like little whirlwinds look. I run in circles just like them, slipping further from my thoughts than you. at least the day can’t reach me through the windows in my dreams.

another stream

the day is a march against the stream. I stumble on rocks or expectations into fears that know I am easy to find. the water is cold and I can't seem to forge a path through the reeds lapping at my ankles. thoughts pass with fallen leaves on the surface. I watch them drift out of sight and reach like reason or whatever once meant the world. in another stream they don't. in another stream I fight harder for the things that matter, to keep the language that connects me to the pulse of every teardrop borne from our primordial soup. in another stream I swim. but I am tired and this stream knows where it wants to go.

when I wake I find myself in the same stream and as far from my thoughts as before. a little less familiar every day. I feel the clench of the claws in my skull wring my brain in disbelief. desperation lingers from their grip into my pillow. I admire the ceiling fan for knowing what to do. 

pretending to read

my thoughts are tired and never quick enough. the right words never come and I flail in feelings I've no language for. I dream of drifting with the clouds and pray for rain. pretending to read on the red chair in the waiting room. I hide from myself until they call my name. 

using my legs

if I kick the wall it doesn’t fall

and when I run into the ocean

it only wants to spit me out.

like winter

the first day of summer rains like winter. I can choose to draw some kind of comfort here: the lack of heat I can't quite handle or the company of other disappointments. but the rain is cold on my face and choice demands a reason I've forgotten. my glasses fog like thoughts I can't land, every other resolution lost to traffic at the lights. other people read the forecast and I never learn.